The Evolution of Mothers in Bollywood

 

'Mere Paas Maa Hai'- Recall this very popular dialogue of Shashi Kapoor from the 70s film 'Deewar' embodies the significant meaning of a mother’s existence in one’s life. If we look into the Bollywood films the portrayal of a mother has always been changing in every decade.

The God-fearing, homely moms of the 40s,  an idealistic mother, who tolerated misery. in the 50s and 60s, mothers laboring over a sewing machine in the 70s and 80s, friendly, witty, and modern in thinking of the 90s to the mother of films like English Vinglish, Mom, Secret Superstar, Vicky Donor.

In this blog, I look into the mothers of the 21st-century being portrayed in Bollywood films. The first significant role of a mother in my list is the role that shattered the stereotyped Maa role was in 'Kya Kehna' (2000). In this film, Preity Zinta plays a young unwed mother who takes on society to protect her unborn child.

Another unconventional mother role was that of Kirron Kher in 2008’s Dostana, who although with a heavy heart, was ready to accept her son’s boyfriend. Ratna Pathak Shah plays the new-age mother  is the best friend in films like Jaane Tu…Ya Jaane Na 

How can we forget Sridevi who played a role of a mother, who enrolls in an English-speaking course to stop her husband and daughter from mocking her lack of English skills^[ and gains self-respect in the process in the 2012 film English Vinglish and also a mother who takes revenge of the rapists of her daughter in the 2017 film 'Mom' 

We will see more unconventional mothers in Bollywood films in the future. The challenge, however, is to present the new-age mom without eliminating the core attributes that define motherhood. 

Song of Kya Kehna 2000

Song of Dostana 2008

Song of English Vinglish 2012

Song of Mom 2017

'Balma' and 'Sajna' have gone from our Bollywood Songs.

 

The vocabulary of our film songs has been changing from one era to another era. The words 'Balma','Sajna' and 'Preetam' were very common in the songs of the 50s and 60s, but now these words are almost missing.

The urbanization of the audience and their interest in modern stories have rejected the words that have rural roots. Today this is replaced by 'Jaanam', 'Jaanu', 'Babu' or 'Baby'. This does not mean that today the young boys and girls do not fall in love but their fantasies have changed, their emotions and expression have changed.

In this blog, I have selected a few of such 'Balma', 'Sajna' or 'Preetam' songs from every decade.

The first song in my list is from the film 'Devdas' 1936 sung by K L Saigal

Song of Devdas 1936

This song was originally sung by C H Atma, it was later sung by Geeta Dutt in the 1955 film Me & Mrs 55

Song by C H Atma

This song is from the Movie Kajal(1948), sung by Allaudin Naved and Shamshad Begum composed by Ghulam Mohammed.

Song of Kajal(1948) Audio

Song of Awaara (1951)

Song of Buzdil (1951)

Song of Gharana (1961)

Song of Mera Naam Joker (1970)

Song of Aap Ki Khatir 1977

Sajan or Sajna

Song of Parakh 1960

Song of Bombai Ka Babu 1960

Song of Bandini 1963

Song of Aaye Din Bahaar Ke (1966)

Song of Sajan 1969

Song of Sajan 1969

Song of Aan Milo Sajna 1970

Song of Saudagar 1973

Song of Swami 1977

Song of Maine Pyar Kiya (1989)

Song of Sajan 1991

Song of Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge 1995

Preetam

Song of Mr. & Mrs. 55 (1955)

Song of Pocket Maar (1956)

Song of Main Shadi Karne Chala (1963)

Song of Archana (1973)

The Great Dance Based Films of Bollywood

The very first movie fully Choreographed was Kalpana (1948) produced and directed by the renowned dancer Uday Shankar. In the same year, another film released was S S Vasan's Chandrakanta choreographed by Tarun Chopra, the disciple of Uday Shankar ji. With the success of both these films, the era of dance began in Hindi Cinema. Before that, a film Roti (1942) became hit because of Sitara Devi's Dance.
The story of Kalpana revolves around a young dancer’s dream of setting up a dance academy, It is a disguised autobiography of Uday Shankar. He presented dance in a captivating manner, and with a message that he wants India to be saved from the west and its bad influences.

V Shantaram was the earliest filmmaker who made films on dances and dancers of India. His film Jhanak Jhanak Baje Payal(1955) was one of the first Hindi films that revolved entirely around dance. Filmmaker-actor V Shantaram directed wife Sandhya and dancer Gopi Krishna in this classic. A young 17-year old Shivkumar Sharma too was heard playing santoor in this National award-winning film. This was also the first time santoor was used in Indian cinema. Magnificently shot in Technicolor, the film is considered a classic with hit songs such as Jhanak Jhanak Baaje Re More Palaliya, Jo Tum Todo Piya, and Murli Manohar. This too remains one of Ganesh Acharya's favourite dance films.

He made another film Navrang(1959), this film was heavily concentrated on the dance sequences, a few of these dances are immortal. Diwakar(Mahipal) is a poet and loves his wife Jamuna (Sandhya)more than anything. But Jamuna feels that Diwakar lives in a fantasy world and is irresponsible in the real world. Diwakar creates a muse from his imagination, who looks exactly like his wife and whom he calls Mohini.
Nartaki (1963) The story was about a dancing girl (Nanda) brought up in the Tawaif (courtesan) milieu, who wants to better herself with an education. She is helped amidst great societal clash, by a newly arrived Professor (Sunil Dutt).

Guide(1965) was a film based on a novel by R.K Narayan, Guide stars the legendary Dev Anand as Raju, a tourist guide who takes Indian and foreign visitors to historic locations and tells them stories about these magnificent places. Raju meets Rosy (Waheeda Rehman), the wife of his client whose passion is pursuing old caves. Rosie’s passion is dance. Raju helping Rosy find her feet as a dancer.  Rosy achieves stardom with the help of Raju. The film was known for its Kalbeliya dance sequence as also the song 'Piya tose naina lage re', which showed different folk dances from across India as also celebration of different festivals.

Jal Bin Machhli Nritya Bin Bijli (1971) is another V Shantaram's dance film. The heroine is madly in love with dance and refuses to marry the groom her father has chosen for her. She runs away and joins a dance troupe and there she finds a like-minded soul who is equally in love with dance.

.Pakeezah (1972) is another film based on a courtesan. The heroine is a courtesan, this was played by Meena Kumari. Though it’s said Meena Kumari was unwell to dance herself and hence Padma Khanna was used as a body double for songs requiring rigorous footwork.

Disco Dancer(1982) is a dance film but not on Indian classical dances but about disco songs and dances. Anil (Mithun Chakraborty) is an artist who earns his livelihood by performing on the streets. He was noticed by a Dance trainer and took him from the street and introduce him on the stage as Jimmy. Jimmy starts gaining popularity in Goa, so David arranges for a show in Mumbai. Mithun styled himself on John Travolta in the film and the plot points of the film too were kind of inspired by Saturday Night Fever.

Naache Mayuri is a 1986 dance biographical Hindi film directed by T. Rama Rao. It is a real story of Bharatanatyam dancer Sudha Chandran, who lost her leg in an accident on her way to Trichy to Chennai on June 1981. The story depicts how she received an artificial Jaipur Foot and eventually learned to dance again, triumphing over her fate, and ultimately becoming very successful in her life. 

Ilzaam is a 1986 film starring Govinda in his film debut He plays a criminal,  who sings and dances on the streets, distracting people, while his colleagues break into apartments and rob the residents. It was a box-office hit.

Dil To Pagal Hai(1997) The film follows the love lives of the members of a musical troupe, in which two dancers played by Madhuri Dixit and Karisma Kapoor compete for the love of a choreographer played by Shah Rukh Khan 

Taal (1999) is a story of Mansi(Aishwarya Rai) daughter of a poor spiritual singer named Tara Babu (Alok Nath). meets Vikrant Kapoor (Anil Kapoor), a successful and famous music producer/director, who happens to be a fan of Tara Babu's work. With the encouragement of her uncle Prabha, she signs a three-year contract with Vikrant, and Mansi performs dance numbers and remixes of Tara Babu's songs as well as some of Vikrant's productions. She wins awards and becomes a sensation in India. In the meantime, Vikrant starts to fall in love with Mansi.

Taal (1999), music and dance played such an important part in the movie.  The story of the film had a very common plot point which includes, poor girl and the rich guy falling love and the family disapproving of the relationship. But, what makes this movie so incredible, is exquisite dances. Costumes, art direction and music 

Aaja Nachle (2007), the movie is about a woman named Dia who tries everything to make sure the academy in which she learnt dance continues to survive. She takes it upon herself to come back to her village and save the dance institute. The film revolved around a dance drama, which Madhuri Dixit is conducting and the dance sequences in songs such as Aaja nachle is superb.Aaja Nachle was Madhuri’s comeback film in Bollywood.

ABCD: Anybody Can Dance (2013) is a film directed by Remo D Souza, a celebrity choreographer. Prabhu Deva and Remo D’Souza come together for a movie one thing you can expect for sure is amazing choreography and ABCD gave us just that. Prabhu in the movie was seen as a choreographer who is sacked from the academy he is working at. He then ends up creating his own dance group with the aim of beating his former employer in a prestigious dance competition.

In 2015, Remo directed the second instalment of ABCD Franchise, titled Disney's ABCD 2, It stars Varun Dhawan, Shraddha Kapoor, Prabhu Deva, Raghav Juyal, Lauren Gottlieb, Dharmesh Yelande and Punit Pathak, the film explores the career journey of Suresh and Vernon of the "fictitious dance crew" Kings United India, who went on to win the World Hip Hop Dance Championship in San Diego. 

Bollywood Films on Farmers and their Struggle

 

The current Farmer's agitation in the capitol gave me a topic for this blog. It is unfortunate that we, living in urban areas, do not bother about the farmer's issues, so do our films. But there was a period when our filmmakers were making films on farmers and their struggle.

Recall, films like 'Do Bigha Zameen', ' Mother India' how impressively they depicted the problems of farmers and rural life. In the 50s and 60s Bollywood films reflected the nation’s conflict, difficulties and struggle of a common man in a true manner. However over the year’s Hindi cinema has changed in terms of film making, content, representation of issues and technological changes. But during the transition of modern Cinema the rural-based subjects and social issues have completely vanished.  In the era of core commercialization, no filmmaker is concerned about making cinema on rural subjects.

Kisan Kanya (1937) based on a novel by Saadat Hasan Manto and focussed on the plight of poor farmers was the first on this subject. The film was directed by Moti B. Gidwani and produced by Ardeshir Irani of Imperial Pictures. It is largely remembered by the Indian public on account of it being India's first indigenously made colour film

Aurat (1940) directed by Mehboob Khan and starring Sardar Akhtar, Surendra, Yakub, Kanhaiyalal and Arun Kumar Ahuja. This film was based on the rural subject. The film's music is by Anil Biswas and dialogue is by Wajahat Mirza. Mehboob Khan later remade this film as Mother India 

Dharti Ke Lal (1946), the first directorial venture of the noted film director Khwaja Ahmad Abbas. It was one of the first films in Indian cinema's social-realist movement. The film was about the 1943 Bengal famine and the plight of a farmer-family caught in this famine and tells the story of human devastation, and the loss of humanity during the struggle to survive.

Hindustan Hamara (1950) a forgotten film. In this film, a social worker comes to help the farmers who shows them new ways of farming A film about agriculture reforms and cooperative farming. The film had Prithviraj Kapoor, Dev Anand, Nalini Jaywant

Do Bigha Zameen (1953)  directed by Bimal Roy. Based on Rabindranath Tagore's Bengali poem "Dui Bigha Jomi", the film stars Balraj Sahni and Nirupa Roy in lead roles. Known for its socialist theme, it is considered an important film in the early parallel cinema of India, and a trend setter. he story revolves around a farmer, Shambu Mahato (Balraj Sahni), who lives with his wife Parvati ("Paro" (Nirupa Roy)) and son Kanhaiya (Ratan Kumar) in a small village that is hit by drought. After years of drought and famine, the region finally gets rain, leading the farmers to rejoice.

Mother India (1957), directed by Mehboob Khan and starring Nargis, Sunil Dutt, Rajendra Kumar, and Raaj Kumar. A remake of Khan's earlier film Aurat (1940), it is the story of a poverty-stricken village woman named Radha (Nargis), who in the absence of her husband, struggles to raise her sons and survive against a cunning money-lender amidst many troubles.

Heera Moti (1959), this film was based on a novel of Munshi Premchand "Do Bailon ki Jodi'.The story is of a small farmer who owns a pair of Oxen. . He lends his oxen to Roopnandan who enters them in a race and they win much to the chagrin of the Zamindar who sends his agent, Bansilal Mehta with Rs.100/- to acquire the oxen. When Razia refuses to sell, an enraged Zamindar sets the entire community against Dhuri and his family The hero was Balraj Sahini and the heroine was Nirupa Roy.

Godaan (1963) was again based on Munshi Premchand's novel. Once again based on the farmers, villages, landlords and the socio-economic deprivation . Raaj Kumar was the hero.

Upkar 1967, directed by Manoj Kumar. He played a village man 'Bharat', who sacrifices everything to get his brother educated. His brother Puran (Prem Chopra) goes abroad and comes back a selfish man wanting his share of the property. Bharat transfers land properties to Puran's son in order to prevent Puran from selling the land.

Dharti Kahe Pukarke (1969) a film directed by Dulal Guha. Starring Jeetendra, Nanda, Sanjeev Kumar in the lead roles It is a story of three brothers; Kanhaiyalal, Moti and Shiv. Moti studies law supported by his brothers, while Shiv helps Kanhaiyalal in cultivating the piece of land they own. Kanhaiyalal borrows some amount from the local moneylender against this piece of land for Moti's law studies. Shiv is in love with this moneylender's daughter, Radha. Moti, after learning about the amount borrowed by his brother, decides to come back only after he has a sufficient amount to repay the loan. On the other hand, Shiv moves to the city as a driver to earn his livelihood.

Lagaan (2001) was an important film on farmers. Produced and acted by Aamir Khan and directed by Ashutosh Gowarikar. The story revolves around a small village in Central India, whose inhabitants, burdened by high taxes, and several years of drought, find themselves in an extraordinary situation as an arrogant British army officer challenges them to a game of cricket, as a wager to avoid paying the taxes they owe.

Peepli Live (2010), written and directed by Anusha Rizvi in her directorial debut, and produced by Aamir Khan Productions. It was a satirical comedy film that explores the topic of farmer suicides and the subsequent media and political response.

Song of Do Bigha Zameen 1953

Song of Mother India 1957

Song of Godaan 1963

Song of Upkar 1967

Song of Dharti Kahe Pukar Ke 1969

Song of Lagaan 2001